Poison Apple
by the moon and the stars
Summary: He is a Mikaelson. Original vampire. Consummate survivor. Death is not his better. / Collection of four vignettes featuring Klamille, Kolvina, Haylijah, Finn, Freya. Post-3x18.
1. Anchor

**Poison Apple**

 **Summary:** He is a Mikaelson. Original vampire. Consummate survivor. Death is not his better. / Collection of four vignettes featuring Klamille, Kolvina, Haylijah, Finn, Freya. Post-3x18.

 **Disclaimer:** I own nothing pertaining to The Originals.

 **Title/lyrics:** Lyrics cited below belong to Charlene Kaye from her album "Animal Love." Do yourselves a favor and go listen to it, seriously. She's beyond amazing.

 **A/N:** The first in this mini-series is based on the 3x19 promo, and the ones that follow will be in reverse chronological order. Just because.

* * *

 _Hallelujah, I'm gonna go and bring the poison apple to ya  
Once you know, it's down you go_

* * *

 **I. Anchor**

"Klaus!"

It is the desperation that secures his attention. It echoes through the empty corridor like a lost prayer and obediently he hastens toward the source, her hold on him as strong as ever. Though it was made perfectly clear it is no longer reciprocated.

But none of that matters when he takes in her appearance.

The unsteadiness of her gait.

The haunted gaze of her fine eyes.

And the telltale wound marring her otherwise flawless skin.

Terror claws at his heart, absolute and without mercy.

"Was it—?"

"Lucien. Yes."

He forces a measure of calm in his voice. "When?"

"I'm not sure. An hour ago, maybe. As soon as he left, I came straight here."

He quickly does the math. Barely half a day lapsed before his brother succumbed to the lethal potency of this same synthesized venom. And that he was an Original vampire, inherently more resilient, cannot be discounted. She is not. Her time, in all likelihood, is even more precious.

Suddenly her arms are circling his neck, startling him. He barely registered her approach.

"Klaus, I'm sorry."

The absurdity of the statement is enough to breach his wall of panic. "For dying?"

"For lying to you."

He searches her face, hunting for clues. "I don't—"

"I love you."

Utterly still; a mute statue in her hold. In that moment, it is impossible to tell whether he is supporting her weakened form or the other way around.

Her eyes stare back into his, wide and sincere.

"I love you," she says again, as though he could possibly miss it the first time.

It is barely above a whisper.

Without warning her legs buckle, and her arms grapple for purchase as she collapses against him. As though the confession was the only anchor tethering her to earth.

And offering it gave her the strength to let go. To leave him.

His pulse spikes.

Hers… does not.

" _Camille_ —"

"I just needed you to know."

Her ragged breaths ghost across his face. So very, very weak.

Yet every single one is a stake to the heart.

She may accept her fate, but he never would.

Nor anything that comes with it.

"I can tell you 'I love you' tomorrow." He scoops her up easily; moves without any clear destination in mind. "You're not dying today."

The words are rough, wretched, tasting of bile. Like a king wearing an ill-fitting crown, he feels a fraud. He has no right, playing the hero. Offering hope. With them, it is always the other way around.

But it is no empty vow.

He is a Mikaelson. Original vampire. Consummate survivor. Death is not his better. Always and forever, She will meet Her match—

His arms tighten.

 _Don't leave me._

—and he will keep his.


	2. Weapon

**II. Weapon**

" _Kol._ "

Any other time, her relief would be welcome.

And the anger that follows would delight him endlessly.

" _Where the hell are you?_ "

"I'm at the border." He crushes the phone against his ear, eyeing the City Limits marker with mounting unease. "Between life and death."

" _What?_ "

"Unfortunately, Marcel's little loophole wasn't quite as ingenious as we hoped. Turns out skipping town is a literal dead end." He sighs, kicking a line of gravel marking the edge of his personal hell. "I can't survive outside New Orleans, Davina."

Her response is immediate. " _Come back_. _We'll find another way to deal with the bloodlust. Another loophole. A spell. Something. The ancestors_ —"

"The ancestors," he echoes with sudden rancor. "Yes. They think they're so clever, pitting me between a rock and a dead place. Another puppet in their endless bid for power and vengeance." A swift kick, and a rock sails far beyond the boundary, disappearing into the dark. "But they miscalculated."

" _Tell me._ "

"They underestimated how much I love you."

The declaration is met with astonished silence.

"And how far I would go to keep you safe," he expands. "You brought me back to life, Davina—and I don't just mean literally. Allow me the honor of returning the favor."

" _What… what are you saying?_ " The tremble in her voice betrays her, audible even above the raucous background of jazz and drunken riffraff.

Above the demon's insatiable demand for blood, blood, blood.

His feet come to an abrupt halt.

"I'm saying this is the end of the line. I can't let the ancestors get their hands on another weapon. I can't. And that's exactly what I'll become if I go back." He switches the phone to his opposite ear, buying seconds. "So for last time—and I do mean _the last time_ —they'll get their sacrificial lamb."

" _Kol, no._ " Her cry, somehow as beautiful as it is terrible, fills his ears. " _You can't!_ "

"I know you'll find a way to stop those tired old hags. I don't doubt you for a second."

" _Come back,_ " she implores again, now a helpless plea. " _We'll figure this out. Together. We'll do it_ together _, Kol, we just need time—_ "

"I'm afraid that's the one thing we don't have, love."

" _The dagger!_ " she says out of nowhere. " _Your family daggers! I'll get one and I'll meet you, buy us a little time until we figure something out, just wait for me, Kol, wait—_ "

"I can't!" The admission is torn from him like a pound of flesh. "I can't bear it any longer. Davina, it's worse than ever. The hunger… It's taking every ounce of strength I have not to run back and rip the entire city apart, starting with you. There is no. More. Time," he says with deadly finality.

From the other end, gentle sobs finally breach the dam. He does not waste the advantage.

"Forgive the cliché, darling, but this is for the best. You never saw the darkest parts of me, and I aim to keep it that way. A thousand years of unabashed depravity… savoring every indulgence, exploring every facet life has to offer… and it isn't until now that I finally found something worth dying for. For that, Davina Claire, I can't thank you enough."

She finds her voice again, devastating in its conviction. " _Don't thank me. Fight, Kol. Fight for_ us _._ "

He would do anything to give her that much. To see her and hold her and kiss her one last time. Share one last dance. But he knows it, deep in his tortured soul, what she cannot accept: He does not have her strength. He would not walk away. Not again. Not from her.

Not from her blood.

His back to the city, he stares into the beckoning black horizon.

"I am" is all he says.

Still she does not give up, and for the first time he hates that about her.

" _Don't leave me._ "

Hates it because of all manner of phrase, she unwittingly captures his traitor brother's dying words. The brother who killed him. Who always loved Death too much.

Who understood the dignity of going gladly.

The promise comes easily. "Never."

Before another word is spoken, the phone joins the gravel beneath his heel, and he hesitates only a beat before crossing that threshold—

And goes to join the brother he no longer has the heart to scorn.

* * *

 **A/N:** Fyi, I am not rooting for this to happen in canon. Not even a little.


	3. Ghost

**III. Ghost**

"Elijah."

Her surprise is palpable when she glances up from the crib. What is unsurprising is the reaction itself. By unspoken agreement, they don't seek each other's company unless outside threats necessitate they do so.

But this threat comes from within.

He nods toward his niece, speaking low. "How is she?"

"Sound asleep."

His smile feels wrong when he muses, "Would that we all could enjoy the peace that Hope does."

A mild observation that awakens the dead air between them.

She turns around, facing him, following his thoughts as though they are her own. "Something bothering you?"

"What you said to Niklaus," he eases forward, "about Camille's feelings. Did that insight come from… personal experience?"

She does not ask for clarification, does not deflect; simply exhales and says, "You know it did."

He does.

He knows her feelings because they were already disclosed, without doubt, without shame, in the form of a goodbye. Words intended as a balm, perhaps, but invaded and festered like a plague. Words that still haunt him every single time he catches her eye and every single night when he closes his. If he was the ghost in her marriage—

Then undoubtedly her confession is his, always and forever.

"I can't compete with a dead man." He barely looks at her. "And like you, I won't dishonor his memory by trying. But you must know—" He stops himself.

For once, it is not about her. Not really.

For so long he struggled to let go, to come to terms with what he never even admitted aloud, and it isn't until now, as his gaze once again falls on the beloved face of her daughter that he finally understands the futility of trying to part with feelings that are as true as his own flesh.

Like her, he needs to own them.

Ghosts must be put to rest.

"I love you, Hayley."

Just as he thought, it does not feel like goodbye any more than before. Whether that is for better or worse, the answer eludes him.

Like another restless spirit.


	4. Bridge

**IV. Bridge**

" _Finn—!_ "

Of all of them, it is his hot-tempered little brother whose cry pierces the veil of agony.

Though he cannot answer past the blood choking the life from him.

" _What's wrong with him?_ "

" _His body_ ," says someone close. Big sister, he thinks. " _It's dying._ "

" _No. No, it's not possible. I cured him!_ "

" _It's going to be alright, brother—_ "

His lungs scream otherwise.

" _Get my pendant—_ "

" _It won't work—_ "

A growl. " _No. Get your bloody girlfriend back here to undo what she's done—_ "

The voices mingle, identities lost in the chaos, but he can feel their fear as real as his own. Utterly foreign in its sincerity.

It is with far too much clarity that he recalls what it is to be banished to the dark like some worthless trinket. Trapped. Forgotten.

" _Finn, you will drink from the source until Freya can move you—_ "

Strange that that feeling is all but absent now. He doesn't understand it, this drop in a sea of loneliness. A glimpse of what was brightest in the dark.

 _Always and forever._

But somehow it gives him enough strength for what follows.

"No."

Quiet acceptance that numbs the room—and even, for a moment, the pain. Though he knows, as the edges of his vision soften and fade to nothing, that it is something far beyond his control granting him such mercy.

Even blind, his eyes find her anyway. His first friend. The beacon in the black horizon.

And as in that box, that pinprick of light is his undoing.

"Don't leave me alone." His strength does not survive the full plea.

" _Brother—_ "

" _Finn—_ "

A hand at his shoulder, and a speaker obscured by failing senses. " _Brother, we are here,_ " the voice says. " _We are here._ "

" _I'm here, brother. Please._ " Another, as familiar and lovely as it is devastating. " _You are not alone. I am here. I am here._ "

It is upon him now, he knows.

" _I am with you. Okay?_ "

He knows.

Someone takes his hand, and idly he wonders if it is Death.

He does not let go.

For the first time, he goes willingly into the dark, bringing with him the light he was so long denied.

Not angry.

Not afraid.

 _I am with you._

Not alone.

* * *

A bridge is fitting, she thinks. A symbol of unity and moving forward; what he gave to them, if only in his final moments.

She thanks him for that. For their family. Because even though Death follows them as loyally as a shadow, demanding to be fed, there are things not even She can take from them.

When it is her turn to speak, the words come easily, as true as the hole in her heart that would never heal—

"I love you."

—no matter how many bridges built.

His ashes leave a welcome stain as they slip through her fingers to the gentle black oblivion below.

"Always and forever, brother."

She watches them for a long time, long after her siblings retire, as they float into a soft dawn breaking in the horizon, endless in its warmth, boundless in its freedom, stretching far beyond what she can see but knows is there.

"Until forever ends."

 _ **Fin**_

* * *

 _What am I gonna do with this love for you?  
Can't throw it out the window  
Can't poison it out_

* * *

 **A/N:** Lyrics above are from Charlene Kaye's "Animal Love II," one of the most beautiful songs ever.

Soo here we are, at the end of my cathartic little journey. Thanks for joining me. As the end of the season approaches, I fear for my dear Originals and especially those closest who tend to get caught in the crossfire. Here's hoping we all (feelz included) survive the season.


End file.
